Snowflake · 2026-05-27 · major
Snowflake to Acquire Natoma — MCP Gateway and Governance Layer for AI Agents, Sixth Snowflake Acquisition Since June 2025
Snowflake signs definitive agreement to buy Natoma, an MCP gateway startup founded in 2024 with a ~$7M seed. The gateway will plug into Snowflake Intelligence and Cortex Code to enforce identity, policy, and audit on every agent tool call.
Snowflake bolts an MCP governance layer onto Cortex by acquiring two-year-old Natoma.
What is it?
Natoma sells an enterprise gateway that sits in front of MCP servers and enforces identity verification, access policies, and audit at the tool-call level. The company was founded in 2024 by Pratyus Patnaik, Will Potter, Zachary Hart, and Paresh Bhaya, raised ~$7M in a May 2025 seed round, and has roughly 20–27 employees.
How does it work?
Snowflake plans to wire Natoma's MCP Gateway into Snowflake Intelligence and Cortex Code so that Cortex Agents can act on enterprise apps, databases, APIs, and tools through a vetted MCP server library, with identity-aware permissions and a full audit trail of who triggered which action. Snowflake says it has already deployed Natoma internally for email management and cross-platform search. Terms were not disclosed; closing is subject to customary conditions.
Why does it matter?
Snowflake CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy frames the deal as 'agents don't just need access to data — they need the right context, permissions and policy guardrails to operate safely.' This is Snowflake's sixth acquisition since June 2025 and slots into a fast-growing market where SaaS vendors are racing to be the trusted MCP control plane for enterprise agents.